This disclosure relates in general to content download and, more specifically, but not by way of limitation, to downloading multiple content objects from a network.
There is no way to easily download multiple content objects today. An example of the problem is demonstrated at a music download web site that is forcing people to individually click on each object to save the object to their local drive. For a complete album, that could be around 14 individual downloads for each song, for example.
Other attempted solutions to this problem are generally limited to creating a client application for downloading groups of files. The client application, which is not tailored for each group of files, is initiated during a download of a file having a group of objects by prompting the operating system for the application with a unique file extension associated in the operating system with the client application. This method requires defining a unique file extension to the operating system so the associated client application is retrieved when that file extension is encountered. Trying to get users to install and upgrade the client application is cumbersome. To download the files on another computer, the application and other configuration must be performed for that computer also.
Another technique for solving the problem of multiple file download creates a single compressed file that includes the various files for download. One example of this technique is the creation of a zip compressed file that encapsulates multiple files. The zip file is often very large and ultimately has to be unzipped by the user, which can be a complex process.
In the appended figures, similar components and/or features may have the same reference label. Further, various components of the same type may be distinguished by following the reference label by a dash and a second label that distinguishes among the similar components. If only the first reference label is used in the specification, the description is applicable to any one of the similar components having the same first reference label irrespective of the second reference label.